board

oscar aartstreasurer

Oscar is a Director at Houlihan Lokey, an investment bank, where he advises companies on valuation matters. He began his career in London, England with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Oscar holds a BA in Economics from the University of Western Ontario, is a Chartered Accountant in the UK and is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder. Born in Canada, Oscar has lived and worked in Australia, Europe and the U.S. It was really a roundabout way of getting to New York where he arrived in 2008 and continues to live in Brooklyn. His love of travel and passion for sailing has taken him to Southeast Asia where he delivered and raced a boat for four months and on a sailing voyage from New Zealand to Hawaii. He is planning for his next sailing adventure which he hopes to be a transatlantic crossing. It is Oscar’s zest for both sailing and working with young people that brought him to Rocking the Boat.

peter beardsley

Peter is an attorney at Loeb & Loeb LLP, an international law firm where he advises lenders and companies in finance and restructuring matters. Peter is a lifelong New Yorker, and spent his formative years just north of Hunts Point in New Rochelle, NY, before getting his BA in history and psychology at Amherst College, and his JD at Brooklyn Law School. Peter is well known in the sailing community for his fleet building and organizational efforts, and was inducted into the Intercollegiate Sailing Association Hall of Fame in 2000. He was an assistant coach of the Fordham University Sailing Team for two years, class president of the Vanguard 15 and Viper 640 classes, event chairman for several national and regional championships, and competes internationally in Viper 640s year round out of Larchmont Yacht Club, as well as in Sunfish on Shelter Island and in keelboats and foiling boats. He and his wife Rachel served as benefit committee chairs for Rocking the Boat's Whitehall Award gala for two years before joining the board, and he does pro bono legal work for unaccompanied minors in deportation proceedings and with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

tom carpenter

Tom's first job in New York City was, true to his name, as a carpenter. Tom has worked with major media companies launching digital products and services and is currently the Technical Director of Partner Operations for Major League Baseball Advanced Media. He enjoys speaking on developments in digital media and has been featured at NAB, Tribeca Film Festival, Dig South and Streaming Media East & West, among other venues. He is involved in multiple art and craft-oriented organizations including the Guggenheim, New Museum, and International Center of Photography, and also serves on the Board of the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, SC, the only four-year liberal arts and sciences college offering a Bachelor of Applied Science in traditional, hand-tooled building skills including carpentry, timber framing, blacksmithing, hand-troweled plaster, masonry and hand-carved stonemasonry. Tom holds a dual-major BA in Psychology and Spanish from Purdue University. An avid sailor, Tom has logged countless regattas and over 4,000 ocean miles since beginning to sail in local waters in the summer of 2010.

manda d'agatapresident

Manda is the Treasurer for a private investment firm. Previously, she was the Treasurer for the Americas Region for Goldman Sachs, where she was co-chair of the Asset Liability Committee, the Stress Test Committee and the Capital Management Committee. Manda joined Goldman Sachs in 1999 as a generalist associate in the Investment Banking Division and entered the Consumer Retail Group upon its formation in 2002. In 2004, she moved to the Americas Financing Group to manage investment grade lending under William Street. Manda served as chief of staff to the chief administrative officer of Goldman Sachs from 2005 to 2006. She was named managing director in 2006. Prior to joining the firm, Manda worked as an equity analyst for Janney Montgomery Scott. Manda earned a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1999.

jennifer galvin

Jen Galvin works at the intersection of health, environment, media and innovation. She forged the discipline now known as "Ocean and Human Health" and founded reelblue, a production company specializing in stories that connect people with global health challenges. Jen also leads the Henry David Thoreau Foundation that deploys catalytic investments to the next generation of environmental leaders. She holds a ScD from the Harvard School of Public Health, a MPH from Yale University, and a BS from Brown University.

rolando tomas infante

Rolando is Manager of Public Affairs for Consolidated Edison in Bronx County, where he engages in community, legislative, and media relations. Rolando is also responsible for handling the company's corporate giving program in the borough. Rolando has over 15 years of public affairs experience at the local and federal levels of government, labor, and private industry. Rolando earned his graduate degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Long Island University and received his undergraduate degree from Boston College. Rolando is a native New Yorker, born in Manhattan and raised in Queens, where he still lives. He shares an affinity for anything nautical and spent his formative summers in Miami Beach, Florida.

matt landry

Matt Landry has been a sailor all his life, most recently racing with the Prospector Sailing Team competing in the world’s top offshore challenges.
When not sailing, Matt is an underwriter at JPMorgan Chase providing loans to middle market business based in New York City. Prior to joining the bank, Matt worked in the film and TV production industry designing sustainability and waste reduction programs for feature film and commercial shoots.
Having grown up on the east end of Long Island, Matt believes in importance of keeping our local waterways clean and accessible to all.

greg matzat

Greg is a naval architect, ocean engineer and life-long sailor. Greg worked in the maritime industry at the yacht design firm Sparkman and Stephens and is responsible for the design, engineering and construction management of over 100 vessels built in the U.S. and around the world. Greg then moved into renewable energy where at the U.S. Department of Energy, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and Vineyard Wind he has helped start an offshore wind industry in the U.S. and New York that can provide affordable, clean energy. Greg has sailed and raced everything from Lasers to megayachts and currently races a Melges E Scow. Rocking the Boat is a natural fit for Greg, combining his belief in education to help young people rise with his passions for boatbuilding, sailing and the environment.

frosty montgomery

Frosty is a Senior Vice President/Director at Brown Harris Stevens, New York's oldest residential real estate company. Her past professional experiences have included marketing and publicity at Time Inc, producing industrial and multi-media presentations of major network programming, and for 12 years, producing conferences, customized tours and promotional events for such companies as Time Inc, Forbes, Goldman Sachs, and J. Walter Thompson. Frosty was an active board member for 12 years at Buxton School, a private school in the Berkshires as well as a board member of Advertising Women of New York. Frosty has a deep seated love for boats, having grown up spending her summers in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada, canoeing, camping and sailing.

carla murphysecretary

Carla Murphy started working for NYC Emergency Medical Service while she was in college studying computer science. Throughout her career, Carla has worked with agencies all over the world to use technology to improve public safety. She currently works for the New York Fire Department. Originally from Manhattan, she now calls Brooklyn home. Carla enjoys sailboat racing year round and looks forward to the days where she has to dig her dinghy out of the snow before racing.

jeremy pochman

Jeremy is co-Founder and Director of 11th Hour Racing, captain and professional sailor. Educated in France and stateside, with a penchant for math and solutions, he worked at Nantucket Community Sailing as Director of Operations and sailed many miles on the classic yawl Impala. Jeremy has dual degrees in English and French and is a licensed USCG captain. Through 11th Hour Racing, Jeremy’s goal is to underscore the bonds between human and water and land through sailboat racing, recognizing that we can push each other to find better solutions for better sailing practices.

antonio ramosvice president

Tony is a Managing Director at TIAA meshing science and intuition on computers to manage global equity portfolios for the greater good. Originally from Portugal, Tony came to the US to study computer science at UC Berkeley, worked in Japan for seven years before returning to the US and getting his citizenship and MBA at UCLA. After working for Nicholas|Applegate Capital Management in San Diego and Harris Investment Management in Chicago, Tony arrived in New York in 2008 and discovered his passion for sailing and for cycling. He is the President of his alumni class at UCLA and a member of the Board of the Alumni Network, a partner of Sculpture Space NYC, and a member of multiple art, sailing, and cycling organizations.

thom thacker

Thom graduated from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and began his career as a high school history teacher. After leaving teaching, he worked for two decades in museums, first as a Deputy Director at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens and, more recently, in the lower Hudson Valley, as Site Director at Philipsburg Manor, Union Church, and Kykuit, the Rockefeller Estate. He became involved with Rocking the Boat in the early 2000s, when Philipsburg Manor and Rocking the Boat entered into an eight-year collaboration that involved groups of Rocking the Boat students coming to the property in the summer and building wooden boats on the historic site. Since retiring, Thom has been volunteering every week at Rocking the Boat, providing assistance in the student boat building program and carrying out various projects at the Rocking the Boat facility.

peter wright

Peter Wright owns and manages Wright Asset Management, an investment advisory. Peter is a graduate of the Lawrenceville School and the University of Virginia, an active sailor, and a leader in the Barnegat Bay, New Jersey sailing community. Peter serves on the boards of the Shelter, Inc, a humane animal foundation, and Harrogate, a continuing care retirement community. Peter is treasurer of All Saints Episcopal Church, Bay Head.